


Of The Race That Knows Joseph

by scoradh



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-03-16
Packaged: 2018-01-16 00:28:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1324942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scoradh/pseuds/scoradh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When dead men walk and badgers give you sarcastic looks, it's time to re-evaluate what it means to be a werewolf.</p><p>Written in November 2006 for the Remix Redux challenge. I remixed a story by starrysummer entitled 'But The Liquor Was Clean.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of The Race That Knows Joseph

It was moonrise. The silvery light trickled from leaf to leaf, making love to the smooth drops that trembled on the edges. As Remus watched, bored out of his skull, a raindrop gave one last, defeatist shiver and slid off the leaf above his head. Right on to Remus' nose.

It wasn't in Remus' nature to rant and rage, but he thought he could allow himself a put-upon sigh.

Citizen patrols were instituted in the days following Voldemort's defeat, which had been almost more perilous and fraught with tragedy than those during his truncated rise. Five years after the fact, the patrols were little more than an excuse for young witches and wizards to spend extensive periods of time in dark places by themselves, and a breeding ground for head colds.

Remus thought longingly of the fire he'd left a few hours before. Nymphadora was putting in extra hours at the office in hopes of a promotion, so she hadn't been home when he left. She'd be in bed by the time he got home. He hoped he'd remembered to leave her a note, but the casserole in the oven was probably sufficient to suggest that he hadn't been spirited away by malignant fairies in a bid to update their image.

A rustle in the bushes prompted Remus to put his hand to his wand. He felt rather silly a few moments later, when a badger plodded out from amongst the greenery and sent him an extremely dry look. When the sound of twigs crunching sounded from his left, therefore, Remus didn't even turn. He'd had enough snooty looks from the wildlife for one night.

So when Regulus Black stepped directly in front of him, opened wide two eyes like blue stars, and fainted in his lap, Remus was a little surprised, to say the least.

* * *

Remus looked down at the man on his sofa. Regulus was no longer a boy, there was no doubt about that. He brought to mind images of men in huge overcoats wrestling grizzly bears, an vision reinforced by his matted beard and nest-like hair. This was not the Regulus that Remus remembered from his school days -- a snootier, slimmer and more anaemic version of Sirius. Remus supposed it was the eyes that had allowed him to recognise Regulus, because Regulus had always had the hugest, most startlingly blue eyes of anyone Remus had ever known. Otherwise, Remus would have mistaken Regulus for a hobo or, at a pinch, a large pile of bracken.

To give himself time to think, Remus went into the kitchen and brewed a cup of tea. He was in no doubt about the efficacy of such a method in calming the nerves, which was why he never made tea using magic. It puzzled Nymphadora exceedingly, but Remus imagined that she put it down to his lycanthropy. It was an excellent catch-all excuse for Remus' idiosyncrasies, although in his own opinion they weren't idiosyncrasies at all. The motions one went through to achieve the product of tea that concentrated the mind, producing a Zen-like state that was far more conducive to rational thought than any amount of theobromine subsequently imbibed.

When he returned to the sitting room, Regulus was sitting up on the sofa. His stare was still as imperious as ever. Remus quashed an urge to rearrange the sofa cushions and straighten out the folds in the rug.

"Tea?" he asked.

Regulus raised one eyebrow. Underneath the hair and the wrinkles and the gardener's dream of dirt, Remus could still see that old expression -- the one that provoked a reaction in Remus that Sirius had once called 'waking the wolf.' Or perhaps he was just imagining it, and Regulus was attempting to startle some lice out of his eyebrows.

"Where am I?" he rasped.

"In my sitting room," said Remus. "Are you sure I couldn't tempt you to a cup? I made a whole pot."

"Why did you bring me here?"

"I'm not entirely certain," Remus confessed. He sat down in the armchair opposite Regulus and sipped his tea.

"It's been a long time," observed Regulus, sharing the obviousness with which he was so gifted.

"Twenty-two years." Remus did not consider that such a very long time, himself; although Harry Potter, whose age it was, might have thought so. To Remus, who knew just how long his own life expectancy was, it was very little time indeed.

"So." Regulus coughed, a hollow sound, like that of a clinically depressed trumpet. His gaze roamed the room, restlessly hopping from ornament to fireplace to framed landscapes, although he himself remained still as a statue. The pause wound out until it was a fully-fledged silence. At last, Regulus added, "I heard you married my cousin."

Remus had not been discomfited by the lengthy hiatus in their conversation. Over the years he'd encountered so many of the same that, if he didn't grow accustomed to them, he'd have had quite a bad time of it. He merely nodded.

"Keeping it in the family, I see."

"I have no idea what you mean," said Remus, because he did. Regulus didn't press the point, but he did smile instead. Not the most phlegm-laden prophecies of an apoplectic apocalyptic sibyl could have been more disturbing. Remus would have preferred a few insults -- a dash of insulting epithets, one or two slanders on the condition of which Regulus was very well aware, having divined it a good two years before his brother. That way, Remus could have been forbearing and suffered it with military politeness, but Regulus didn't give him the chance.

In that, Regulus was very much the Black Sirius had never been. Sirius would rant and rave, shower everyone with spit and turn such a deep shade of magenta it was a matter of doubt to all assembled if he would ever turn back. Five minutes later he'd be sunny once more, the stormy clouds cleared by the bright prospect of more pranks on the horizon. Not so Regulus. Regulus had never said much at all, and what could you do with a boy who just smiled?

"Nice place." All the words Regulus did not say lined up behind the ones he did, smirking and wearing black eyeliner and generally being a menace to society.

"You're too kind," said Remus, with absolute truth.

Nymphadora's approach to interior design was akin to that adopted by their British in their quest to subdue pesky independent nations -- she threw everything she had at it and, where that didn't work, attacked with even more brute force and a wilful refusal to face the fact of defeat. The result was a haphazard mixture of designs from all viable epochs and quite a few that weren't, from Morris to Bauhaus, Elizabethan to Minimalist, and which entirely bypassed any of the style dreamed of by their original designers.

As a joke, Harry and Ron had taken to wearing sunglasses whenever they visited, 'to shield our eyes from the glare,' as Harry quipped. Hermione, on the other hand, loved it, reckoning it as she did to be a wonderfully stimulating place to bring a developing child. Her daughter Claire certainly seemed to feel the benefit, as she learned a new colour or verb of breakage each time she came away. Remus, whilst not overly fond of infants, was prone to reflect that Claire at least smashed less things than Nymphadora did in the course of an average day, and was a considerably tidier eater.

Remus and Regulus stared at each other for a time. Remus, with one argle-socked foot slung across his knee and his tweed cuffs rolled up, sipped occasionally from his cup of tea. Regulus hunched into the piles of crusted cloth that comprised his outfit and which were affixed to his form by string and crystallised dirt, and studied Remus unswervingly for a whole five minutes. Inwardly, Remus was flustered by this attention, and he couldn't keep himself from bouncing his ankle off his knee. As he had long since cultivated this as a tic even in times of mental placidity, however, it had segued into the realm of the unremarkable.

"Well, what are you going to do with me now?" Regulus deliberately placed a grimy hand on the peach sofa cushions. "Your little criminal. Turn me over to the authorities?"

"Much as Molly Weasley would prefer it otherwise, being dirty and unkempt and possessing hair longer than a girl's are not actually criminal traits," said Remus mildly. "You might be under suspicion for Death Eater proclivities. However, the Wizengamot is so dogged with such cases these days they'd probably let you out on bail in any case, as long as you could prove that you had no bodies hidden in easily-accessible places."

"I can't remember if I killed anyone or not." The past two decades of Regulus' life had, it seemed, been devoted to practising the art of not blinking. At all. "I probably did."

"Your case was never heard in any court, in the first war or the second," said Remus. "After all, everyone thinks you're dead."

"Except you."

"Except me," agreed Remus. "Now don't take this as a compliment, Regulus, but I know people who've killed another human being. There's something different about their eyes that never goes away -- and you don't have it."

"You seem to be an expert on the subject," sniffed Regulus. "How do you know?"

"I see it in my mirror every morning." Remus drained the last of his tea. "That brew was particularly good, if I do say so myself. Satisfy an old man's curiosity and tell me -- what have you being doing with yourself since I last saw you?"

"Since you left me to die, you mean."

"You asked me to leave. Ordered me to, as I recall."

"It doesn't change the fact that you left." Regulus' eyes were blue bruises on his soul. "Well, I stayed in that god-forsaken hut for months. It's a good thing it's so stormy on that spit of an island -- every week or so I'd find raw fish washed up on the beach."

"Sounds charming."

Regulus glared. He'd never liked being teased, which was about the only trait he shared with his brother. Even their physique set them apart -- Sirius' lively grey eyes, sallow skin and smooth, dark-brown hair to Regulus' navy, anaemic and spiky, ink-black. "Bloody house-elf stole the Horcrux while I was dying. I was sure I was going to. Taking that damn thing pretty much drained everything I had ? memories, magic, almost my life."

"It appears you were stronger than it, after all."

"I wanted to die," said Regulus dispassionately. "It wasn't like I wanted to hang around that stinky joint."

"What on earth prevented you?"

Regulus scowled. "The hunger. I was so hungry. When people say they're starving to death -- they have no idea what it means. But I just couldn't die. I wanted to be dignified and silent in my passing, but I couldn't. I couldn't -- stop crying. It was --" he searched for a word to summon up the violence of his emotions "-- rotten."

"I thought you had died."

"Did you hope that I had?" Regulus' expression was vicious.

"Perhaps. Once. That was before I knew what death really was. Now I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Not even you."

"You wound me, Remus," drawled Regulus. "You've stolen my one distinguishing feature. I was so proud of being the only creature in the world whom Remus Lupin truly hated."

"My greatest apologies, but you were never that," said Remus. "I hated myself more than anyone else, then or now."

Regulus actually seemed surprised, but that could have been the play of shadows. His hopelessly bushy hair did odd things to the light, filtering it and fracturing it like a lice-ridden prism. He made Harry Potter look well-groomed. "Well, I know your fondness for being obtuse, but your plans?"

"Oh, nothing. I offered you tea and you refused. I can't imagine what more I have to provide, although Nymphadora did once buy coffee in a fit of continentalism. It's probably still at the back of a cupboard somewhere -- I could dig it out if you really crave some."

Regulus gave him a very long, very old look. "My idea of craving is for a nice plump squirrel. I think I've forgot what coffee tastes like, out of self-defence."

"I also have a casserole," remembered Remus. "Would you care for some? Nymphadora will probably stay over at the office tonight, so it'll only go to waste otherwise."

"Casserole?" repeated Regulus, as if Remus had just quoted a verse of obscure poetry in fluent Sanskrit.

"Yes. As payment for abandoning you."

"You and your conscience," said Regulus. "Not tired of it yet?"

"It's not my conscience." Without waiting for Regulus to reply, because if you waited around for Regulus to acknowledge that he wanted something you might as well make a space in your calendar for after Judgement Day, Remus went to the kitchen. The casserole was steaming slightly on the counter. Even to Remus, who was known for his appreciable trait of eating anything that you'd give to a raccoon and quite a lot that you wouldn't, didn't view it with a great deal of culinary anticipation.

By the time Regulus shambled in, Remus had raided the cupboard that Nymphadora kept stocked for Claire. Nymphadora didn't diet. She didn't need to -- being able to change her shape and waistline at will meant that she was denied all the joys of body-hatred and poor to impoverished self-image. However, far from taking advantage of this, she enjoyed nothing more than snacking on raw carrots or a leaf of cabbage; she ate tofu with every evidence of genuine enjoyment; and she could go months at a time without touching a chocolate out of pure indifference. Remus was of the opposite mind, being someone who liked the idea of crisp sandwiches in bed -- but he hated to disappoint his wife, so he rarely indulged.

"What's all this?" Regulus picked up a marshmallow and squeezed it, with the air of an intrepid explorer in a hostile wilderness.

"A midnight feast," said Remus. "Specifically, a pink marshmallow. Try it."

"What -- you mean eat it?"

"Yes." To lead the way, Remus popped a white marshmallow into his mouth and licked the powder from his fingers. "Delicious," he added indistinctly.

Regulus, looking greatly apprehensive, sank his teeth into the marshmallow and dragged, chewed, choked, coughed and subsided, with a glare to Remus that suggested that he'd laced a homeless shelter's soup tureen with arsenic.

"They taste better toasted," said Remus, pretending a blithe unawareness of Regulus' death-ray gaze. "Also, there's crisps, and Bertie Bott's Every-Flavour Beans, and spun-sugar strawberries, and marzipan, and jelly babies, and --"

"I don't think it's right for food to be so colourful!" protested Regulus.

"Well, I could try and rustle up some raw fish if you --"

Remus didn't even have time to finish the sentence. Regulus defiantly grabbed a handful of crisps and another of jelly babies and tossed them topsy-turvy oral-wards.

The sun was peeping bashfully over the horizon by the time the impromptu meal was over. Regulus had discovered a heretofore unknown penchant for raw jelly powder (Remus preferred to drink it mixed with piping hot water). His face had relaxed somewhat, allowing the more superfluous lines to drop away and making him look his age, instead of his father's.

Remus watered a conversational desert by asking Regulus if he'd like to say, surprising no one more than himself by meaning it.

Regulus gave him a look stolen from a startled fawn, two hands full of cold chipolatas.

"Stay -- here?" he said, as if Remus had offered him an extensive list of fashionable hotels to choose from but was trying to foist on him the regional, poky bed and breakfast.

"Well, yes," said Remus. "I use the spare room as a sort of study --" the 'sort-of' came from the fact that Remus didn't study there; rather, it was the one room in the house from which Nymphadora and her spirit-level were barred "-- but it's a bedroom, really."

"Nymphadora will never go for it." Regulus spoke with iron-clad certainty. "She hates me."

"Nyphadora doesn't hate anyone," said Remus. "'Hate is just love that has lost its way,' she says."

"That's bullshit, and a lie as well," said Regulus. "Of course, it's easy for her to say she doesn't hate anyone -- all the people she hated are dead. My mother, my aunts, their spouses -- even my only nephew. But she hates the Blacks for not counting her as one of them, and rightly so. There's no one more deserving of hate than your own family."

Remus thought for a brief instant of his little mother -- grey-haired, grey-faced, sweet-eyed. She'd feared him as only a mother could fear for a monster son, and he'd hurt her by being who he was. It had been too complicated and messy for hate, which if nothing else was a clear and simple emotion.

"Well, if you're so convinced --" Remus began.

"Yeah, I'll be on my way." Regulus scooped up the last of the crisps and shoved them into the voluminous pocket of his trench-coat. "I, you know ? thanks."

"Where are you going?"

Regulus' beard moved in surprise. "Nymphadora'll be home soon. You don't want me here when she arrives."

"That's true," agreed Remus. He stood up, moving around to Regulus' side of the table. "But why are you leaving?"

"I can't stay, not with Nymphadora here!" said Regulus.

"Who says she has to know?" said Remus.

* * *

Remus tapped the door of his study with his wand. The door gave a faint shimmer, and Remus opened it. A simple locking charm was all that he needed; Nymphadora trusted him implicitly. He would never open a door that she had locked, and it was the same for her. There was no reason to ask or wonder why. Remus had got along far better since he'd learned not to wonder at things.

Regulus was sitting on a small bed that Remus had Transfigured from a lamp shaped like an elephant, a housewarming present from Andromeda Tonks.

"Sorry I couldn't get you any breakfast earlier," said Remus, "but as you're so keen to remain in hiding from your cousin it's for the best. It takes her a good two hours to get going in the mornings and she's guaranteed to Apparate back at least once for something she's forgotten."

"That's all right." Regulus sounded distracted. "I had a lot to eat last night."

"That was hours ago." Remus placed the tray beside Regulus on the bed. "I did rashers, toast and porridge, though I have no idea what you like, so --"

"Remus." Regulus caught at Remus' wrist with a desperate, finger-digging gesture. "Stop it."

"Stop what? Don't you fancy anything? That's fine, there's ingredients in the kitchen and you can shift for yourself."

Fingernails clawed the skin of Remus' inner arm. "Stop. Being nice. We -- don't -- we're not nice."

"Yes, you were a horrid little boy," reflected Remus. "Always poking your nose into things that didn't concern you. But I'm hardly going to hold someone accountable for the mistakes of their childhood."

"You were hardly all sweetness and light yourself," growled Regulus. He shook his head. "No. I mean this. The bed. The breakfast. The hospitality. The __flowers_ _ \--"

"Nymphadora is always getting sent flowers. Dennis Creevey is besotted with her. I have to do something with them." Remus had tried to suggest that Dennis find a different recipient for his affections, or even simply a less tangible expression of them, but nothing doing. "Here, are you going to eat this scrambled egg or not?"

"Remus!" shouted Regulus. "Stop -- acting like you're __normal__!"

There was a pregnant pause.

"There's no such thing as normal," said Remus.

"Lupin, you're a __werewolf__. Werewolves don't cook breakfast and put daisies in vases and talk to people they left to die as if they were a beloved chum!"

"I do, and I'm a werewolf," said Remus. "I think that means werewolves do."

Regulus said nothing, but he looked things not lawful to be uttered.

"Your problem has always been that you think there's a way for everyone to act," said Remus. "If you're a pureblood you do this, if you're a Muggleborn you do that ... it's all a fairy-story, nothing more."

"You think you're different, do you?" retorted Regulus. "You spend all your time denying who you are. Just like Sirius. No wonder you got on so well."

"On the contrary, we didn't understand one another very well at all," said Remus. " _ _James_ _ and Sirius understood each other like no two other human beings I've ever met, before or since. Surprising, given James' sheltered childhood and loving family, and Sirius' -- your -- horrible one, that James turned out to be so much more ruthless. Although at least he could understand when he'd done wrong."

"Yes." Regulus smirked. "You hated it that I understood you better than Sirius. Perfect, wonderful Sirius -- Sirius the great, Sirius the mighty, Sirius who never loved you back because he was too busy chasing skirt and after his poncy best mate!"

If it hadn't been a topic on which Remus had previously thought -- thought far too much, if truth be told -- he might have betrayed some untoward emotion at Regulus' words. Grieving for Sirius and being treated like nothing more than a distant friend of the deceased had taught him well, however.

Without a twitch, he said, "Oh, I'm sure Sirius loved me after a fashion. The poor boy was starved for love, so he would have given it to anyone he thought would give it back."

"And did you take it?" Regulus' eyes glittered like frosty sapphires. "Did you?"

"Eat your eggs," Remus sighed.

* * *

Remus scratched out another superfluous adjective and made a mental note to suggest to the author of __101 Ways To Skin A Cat: A Modern Approach To Magical Mathematical Analysis_ _ that words like 'echolalia' and 'cynosure' were rather ambitious for a textbook aimed for thirteen year-olds. Although most of the new subjects introduced at Hogwarts under Hermione's innovative leadership were to be praised, Remus rather felt that Mathematical Analysis was going above and beyond the call of duty. Proofreading De Bergerac's book was doing nothing to allay his misgivings.

A loud bang from upstairs made him jump and unwittingly score out a whole sentence. This later lead to the whole chapter not making sense; the book was subsequently decried as worthless and the author gave up in despair and disgust. Remus met him a decade later, but didn't recognise him as the most lauded transvestite cabaret singer on the Las Vegas Magician's Palace circuit.

By the time Remus reached the study -- for the noise had to have come from there, unless the house had been raided by war elephants without Remus noticing -- Regulus was surveying a toppled chair with a look of diabolic fury. Around his feet was spread the ruin of what had, five minutes before, been Remus' intricate filing system.

"What on earth --" exclaimed Remus. Regulus, with a pretty consciousness of suddenly having company, jumped.

"Oh, it's you," he muttered, as if he'd been expecting someone entirely different.

"What are you doing? Trying to undermine the system from within?" Remus nudged a sheaf of papers with his foot. They looked suspiciously like a bundle he'd resolved to consign to the bin two years before.

"No. Looking for a scissors." Regulus managed to look defiant and defensive at the same time and, despite the dead badger swinging from his chin, no more than twenty years old.

"A scissors! I'm surprised you realise the existence of something so plebeian."

"I've learned to make do," said Regulus, shortly and bafflingly.

"You could just have asked me," said Remus. Regulus' eyes flashed for an instant, and Remus understood that to do so would be to lose. "Anyway, I can fetch you a pair now -- if you tell me what you want them for."

Regulus' teeth appeared to knead his lower lip. He'd never been glib. Sirius would have said something charming or witty that made you smile and give him what he wanted, without ever giving you what you wanted in return. Regulus was more aware of the delicate balance in such a transaction. Remus had to remind himself that Regulus was not Sirius more often than he felt he should.

So Remus thought it was probably all right to account it a small victory when Regulus at last ground out the words, "I want to cut my hair."

"Is that all?" Remus raised his eyebrows. "Why don't you use a Severing Charm?"

"Never mind, it's fine," said Regulus.

"Your beard most certainly is not," countered Remus. "Very well, you always had more than your fair share of eccentricities." He opened a drawer and extracted a scissors from the neatly aligned rows of stationary within. "Now, I'm just going to ask this question once: would you like some help?"

Regulus' mouth quivered, but no sound came out. Remus re-thought his last question.

"I'll cut your hair for you," he said, "and if you've an objection to that, speak now or forever hold your peace." He always found himself paraphrasing his wedding vows at the most inappropriate moments.

By way of an answer, Regulus dropped on to Remus' desk chair. He hung his head, for all the world as if Remus was going to administer six of the best.

Remus grabbed a handful of Regulus' woolly hair and winced at the tacky feel of it. For two pins he'd have chopped it off with magic, but he knew from experience that thwarting Regulus never achieved much apart from severe regret on the part of the thwarter.

The scissors made an unpleasant grinding noise as Remus sawed through Regulus' mop. Remus wondered when Regulus had last washed it. He didn't dare ask, for fear of the answer.

Hulking, semi-solid clumps of hair fell like stones around Regulus' booted feet and Remus' argyle-socked ones. When at last Remus had brought it up to chin-length, he stopped. Tilting Regulus' head back by placing one firm hand on his jaw, Remus proceeded to take the beard in one fist and hack it off in one physically exhausting movement.

"Best to shave the rest off, I think," said Remus. He massaged his aching wrist for a moment, before Summoning his own shaving gear from the bathroom. Regulus regarded him with the still, unnerving glare he had down to a fine art.

Remus had never shaved another man before, but he assumed that twenty-six years of practice on himself wouldn't go astray. The strangest moment came when he was lathering Regulus' cheeks with foam, cupping his face to smooth it out evenly, and he remembered how much Regulus resented being touched. A glance at Regulus' white-knuckled hands confirmed that in this, as in so many other particulars, Regulus was utterly unchanged. It was an almost reassuring thought.

"Won't take a jiffy," Remus found himself saying. His faith in the phrase's ability to calm and relax was negligible to say the least, but he saw Regulus' tightly clasped hands loosen slightly afterwards.

Catching Regulus' eye when Remus' fingers were on his throat, his breath in Regulus' face, his blade against Regulus' skin -- that, that was a mistake. The flush of heat that suffused his groin at the look in Regulus' eyes was only further proof of the fact. Why, with Nympadora these days he could barely even --

He took a last haphazard swipe and dropped the razor into the bowl of hot water. Most men didn't use magic to shave unless they were in a tearing hurry, because of all that the practice represented in terms of thundering masculinity and throbbing virility. Peter, Remus recalled, had always resented the fact that he'd never needed to shave. At the moment, Remus was cursing both the tradition and Regulus' odd and inexplicable bias against magical grooming -- although mildly, of course, with two or three daring mental 'damn's.

He turned away from Regulus as soon as was politely possible, on the pretext of Banishing his razor back to the bathroom. "I think I'll fix you up a bathroom here," he said, with forced jollity that didn't sound all that forced, because he was good at it. "Nothing fancy, just a shower and a sink. Installing toilets requires trickier spells, for some reason, so you'll just have to go when Nymphadora's out."

"I'm sure I'll be able to contain myself," said Regulus. "No peeing in the sink, cross my heart."

Remus nodded and left. There wasn't anything -- civil, anyway -- to say to that.

Regulus had not made one motion or uttered one word of thanks. If Remus hadn't considered himself something of a professional doormat, he might have felt annoyed. Then again, since when had any Black, from Bellatrix to Nymphadora herself, ever said 'Thank you' for anything, or indeed acted as if the whole world wasn't theirs to inherit?

Remus made a cup of tea to calm his nerves, and dropped the mug. On purpose.

* * *

Twenty-two years before, the world had been in turmoil. Remus had since come to the conclusion that the world was always in turmoil, but it was usually quieter and better-behaved in peacetime, and graffiti was more heavily involved.

Remus knew he was considered to be a spy. Sirius had always had a gift for obviousness that was not bested by all the multitude of others he possessed. So when the owl came from Regulus, Remus answered it without a thought. That Regulus didn't write to his brother did not surprise Remus; Sirius no longer regarded himself as related to any Black, brother or no. It wasn't until later that Remus thought to be puzzled by the fact that Regulus had written to __him_._

By then, he'd thought Regulus dead of a raging magico-immune fever and the most viable hypothesis was that the sickness had addled his mind. It wasn't the case that Remus thought of Regulus a great deal, or even often; but once in a while, his face or his name or the angry curve of his lip would flash into Remus' short-term memory, and he'd wonder afresh why Regulus had called him. A very little time was necessary to come to the logical, fever-based conclusion -- but, every time, he had a few minutes of nerve-jumping uncertainty as to Regulus' motives. He'd never indulged them; partly because he didn't wish to face what the alternative would mean to him, but mainly because Regulus was dead. No matter what he'd thought or meant, he was dead.

Back then, Remus had replied and he'd waited, unsure what for. When Remus met Kreacher many years later, his shock of recognition was matched only by the elf's. It had never been appropriate for Remus -- a half-blood, half-human -- to visit the Black's ancestral home, although Peter and James had, once, so he knew nothing of the family's servants. At the allotted time, the sight of such a magical creature -- albeit a scowling, bad-tempered one -- in Remus' grotty Islington flat was enough to alert him to the carrier of Regulus' next message.

That Regulus was extremely ill was obvious as soon as Remus Apparated, hand in hand with the elf, to the pitiful shack. The smell of ammonia and lilac pervaded the small space. Regulus' face was pale, with two red dots like thumbprints on each cheek, and his eyes were unfocused. As the soft pop of Apparating died away, Regulus pushed himself upright, the effort required to keep his arms from trembling evident in the deep grooves in his forehead and beside his mouth.

"You came."

"Yes," said Remus, thrilling in the obviousness of it all. He ventured closer to Regulus, breathing shallowly. "What do you want?"

"You didn't come for that." Regulus spoke slowly, which in someone who had always had machine-gun elocution was a greater indication of negative changes than the flushed, sweaty skin or wasted figure. "You came for something __you_ _ want."

Remus shook his head, feeling faintly disturbed. "No. You said you wanted to see me. I got the impression that you wanted my help." It had been a weak impression, to be sure, but Remus was an expert at reading between the lines -- even when there were no lines between which to read.

"I'm dying," said Regulus, "and I stole part of Voldemort's soul. You can tell your precious Dumbledore that. You can tell him ... tell him ... __Horcruxes__."

"Why do you want me to do that?"

Regulus laughed. "I'm trying to save you, because you won't save yourself. You're no more a spy than my precious brother."

A shock passed down Remus' spine. "How do you know?"

"How do you think I know?" said Regulus scornfully. He dragged up his sleeve. Remus flinched from the seeping tattoo. "Infiltration from within. I knew it would be the only way." A hacking cough interrupted his almost gleeful soliloquy. "And that's what I found. Horcruxes. Soul splitting. Soul storage. And -- soul killing."

Remus realised then that Regulus was fevered and delusional. "I see," he said soothingly. "Now, why don't we --"

"No! You've got to understand!" With surprising strength, Regulus grasped Remus' arm and pulled him into a slump on the bed. "It's gone. The magic. Everything. It took it. But I did it! That's what you have to do. You have to promise."

"I promise," said Remus. He was speaking inane words of comfort, but his brain was too much taken with the hazy look in Regulus' eyes to pay much attention to his diction.

Regulus sunk back on to the pile of rags that could, optimistically, be called a bed, although even the term 'pallet' would have been too complimentary. "Wine," he rasped. "There's ... wine."

Remus spotted a dusty bottle on the floor. After a moment's hesitation, he pressed the rim of it to his lips. The liquid was thick on his tongue and tasted bitter. It was the first time that Remus had drunk wine. He was saddened that it didn't taste more like raspberry cordial, as he'd imagined it would. Regulus' wine was of an unsurpassable vintage -- not that Remus appreciated it at the time. He never did develop a palate for it.

"Me," said Regulus. A little bubble of spit grew at the side of his mouth and popped as he leaned on shaky elbows.

The strong wine had gone straight to Remus' head. Brooking no opposition, he slid a hand behind Regulus' lolling skull to support it and held the mouth of the bottle to Remus' lips, which were damp and parted as if in supplication. Regulus recoiled from the touch -- or, later events considered, perhaps from the surprise of it -- but it was drink or drown, so he drank. Under his palm, Remus could feel muscles working beneath Regulus' hot skin as he swallowed quickly, between gasps.

At a sound of protest Remus retracted the bottle. He noted the glaze on Regulus' lips and the way a red coil was sliding down his chin. Remus took another swig, glugging back the wine like lemonade. He felt distinctly dizzy when he went to wipe his mouth on his sleeve, remembered halfway that Regulus would think such an action impossibly proletarian, and licked his lips instead. Regulus' eyes followed his tongue like a hypnotised snake, and Remus' chest suddenly felt too tight to breathe.

"I'd better go," he said, not meaning a word.

"You're drunk," said Regulus. He sounded exhausted and amused. "You're going to splinch yourself. That'll be a laugh."

"The elf," Remus mumbled.

"Has gone home," supplied Regulus, who apparently could take his drink far better than Remus. He shifted on the pallet, raking a trembling hand through his thick brush of hair and unintentionally exposing a devilish hollow of hip. Remus' eyebrows went up. Regulus, evidently worn out from his exertions, was breathing hard and so loudly he was almost moaning.

"Are you cold?" Remus suddenly felt solicitous. "Can I get you some medicine?"

"Got a Philosopher's Stone on you?" Regulus smirked and didn't wait for an answer, instead rubbing his hand down his swollen throat. "Didn't think so."

"Is there __anything_ _ I can do for you, then?"

Regulus hooked a hand under his head and surveyed Remus with his mouth in his palm. His words were not muffled for all that. "Take off your clothes."

"What?" For a wild instant, Remus thought Regulus wanted some extra warmth. He was on the point of offering to Transfigure something into a blanket -- Regulus hardly looked up to that level of magic -- when Regulus spoke again.

"I want to see you naked."

The ludicrousness of such a request from anyone, much less Regulus Black, provoked Remus to bark with laughter. "Why?"

"You asked could you help. You could help me by taking your clothes off." Regulus pouted into his hand. "Should have known you wouldn't. Wanker." As Regulus' insults went, this was stunningly unoriginal. Remus suddenly felt sorry for him.

"Well, I could take off my cardigan," he offered. "As for the rest ..."

"Scared?" challenged Regulus.

"Embarrassed," countered Remus. He pulled his cardigan over his head; a cold flush of air against his stomach told him that his shirt had come as well. The alcohol proved an effective insulator, however, so he stripped both layers of cloth from his arms and let them fall to the floor.

Regulus' mouth twitched upwards, and a soft "Oh" escaped his lips. Remus hugged himself, wishing his body was nicer, even though Regulus was hardly his standard marker for approbation.

"What now?"

"The rest."

"No way."

"Fine." Regulus flopped backwards. "Fuck off then."

"Honestly, Regulus. What would it achieve if I did ... you know?"

"Take all your clothes off?" Regulus sounded oddly breathless. "You won't know unless you do."

This was an affront to his courage that, in his drunken state, Remus could not ignore. He unzipped his worn cords and shook off the loose material. At the sound, Regulus turned. In his boxers and socks, Remus squatted awkwardly beside him.

"More wine?" offered Regulus.

Remus drank gratefully, one hand clenched on the pallet to steady himself. He didn't realise that Regulus was stroking his knuckles up and down his inner arm until he finished drinking.

"Come on, then." Regulus' whisper was harsh in Remus' ear. His other hand ghosted up Remus' clenched thigh muscles.

"Not fair." Remus shook his head in a vain attempt at espousing some sort of denial. "What about you?"

"You want to see?" Regulus arched his hips, exposing them again -- two sharp juts of bone that Remus wanted to squeeze and lick and bruise. It was a sudden and terrifying thought; he was afraid from the look on his face that Regulus sensed it.

"Help." Regulus raised his arms. Remus slipped his hands under Regulus' jumper, caressing the hot skin as he slowly tugged the cloth away. Deprived of cover, his fly gaped open; the little finger of the hand Remus rested on Regulus' flat stomach was brushing coarse hair. Blood rushed to his head.

"Why are we doing this?" he whispered. By way of a reply, Regulus wrapped two thin arms around him and pulled him down into a kiss.

Taken unawares, Remus started, and an uncomfortable prickle of shame made rather a failure of their first embrace. A tightening of the arms around his neck and the wide eyes of the boy underneath him ensured that it was not to be their last, however. Remus dipped his head to crush his mouth on Regulus', marvelling that spit and wine could taste so different when taken from another's tongue. Although far from expert at the practice of kissing another boy -- James' and Sirius' impetuous drunken pecks could hardly be counted -- Remus made up for in enthusiasm what he lacked in skill.

The angle was poor and Remus' neck soon cramped. If it wasn't for the moreish sensation of Regulus' agile tongue slipping in and out of his mouth and the warm ache that was building wherever their bodies touched, Remus would have broken off to rub the offending anatomy. Fortunately, Regulus seemed to intuit his discomfort. He drew back with fluttering eyelids that made Remus' breathing thicken and shoved over on the pallet, in a way that was far from graceful but could not have been more inviting to Remus at that moment.

The brief pause had allowed Remus to become aware of the erection growing in his boxers. He pressed down on the damp cloth, hoping to will it away before he reached for Regulus again. He only succeeded in drawing Regulus' attention to it.

The blue eyes sucked him in so that he hardly noticed Regulus' tongue wetting his lips with every evidence of anticipation. All Remus knew was that Regulus didn't look like he was going to make fun of him, or push him away in disgust. He was proved right when Regulus pulled him close, chest to chest, mouth to mouth.

With heady trust, Regulus placed his hand over Remus' and slid it down his own back, dipping into the gape of his trousers. When Regulus left it there and his mouth trembled as he kissed Remus' neck, Remus took it as tacit permission to nudge the cloth down. He only got it as far Regulus' knees before Regulus sidetracked him by arching his bare cock into Remus' stomach and keening softly in the most distracting manner.

Remus had never sucked a man off before, but he'd dreamed about it so often that he was a little disconcerted to find it somewhat more difficult that he'd expected. Once level with his nose, Regulus' cock looked impossibly large, and it glistened in a way that scared Remus even as it excited him. Deciding to start with what he knew best, he cupped Regulus' balls in the way he liked to hold himself, brushing the pad of his thumb across the nubbly skin in slow circles. His breath catching at the sound of Regulus' choked moans, he made up his mind and closed his lips around the head of Regulus' cock.

It was hardly an enchanting experience, for Remus felt like he was suffocating, Regulus tasted sour to say the least and Remus had to keep mentally reminding himself to keep his teeth out of the way. All the same, Remus quickly came to love what it meant to have Regulus thrusting into his mouth, hands tangled in his hair and endless obscenities and encouragements pouring from the other end. Although at the last he sat up quickly and spat out what little of Regulus' come had spilled into his mouth, leaving Regulus to his orgasm, the look of satiation on Regulus' face filled Remus with a quiet satisfaction that he rarely felt.

Regulus appeared to drift off afterwards, not quite asleep but evidently exhausted. He looked debauched and grubby, with his trousers in a twist around his knees and his stomach streaked with come, his mouth red from kissing. Remus brushed the rough hair from his forehead with unabashed tenderness, which he would look back on when he was sober as the sweetest part of the evening. Sex was all very well, but it was being allowed to show affection without due chastisement that Remus took away as being the best affect of being drunk.

After a while, Remus pushed his hand into his boxers to deal with his own erection, which was raging on unabated. At the soft sigh that he could not prevent escaping Regulus opened his eyes.

"My turn," he said, withdrawing Remus' hand and replacing it with his own. With the other he yanked down Remus' boxers, caressing Remus' bottom with an expression of fulfilment that Remus couldn't place at all.

Regulus' hand squeezing his cock went along in a slow and leisurely manner, and Remus could feel his fingers trembling from pure weariness. He went so slowly, in fact, that Remus floated off into a blissful daze, stroking down his own chest in an ecstasy of sensation.

At last he felt the tension building, and with the usual soft sigh of "Sirius", he came.

He was unprepared for the rage that met him when he opened his eyes, mainly because he thought Regulus too weak to be able to support that ferocity of emotion. For years he never realised what exactly he'd done to enrage Regulus so. Of course, it was impolite to say someone else's name while his brother was jerking you off, but it wasn't as though Regulus was his girlfriend or anything more than a random, alcohol-stimulated one night stand.

"Get out," growled Regulus.

"What?" Remus blinked in confused sleepiness.

"Get out!" Regulus suddenly screamed. His expression was one of death to all nay-sayers. In the circumstances, Remus had never dressed quicker.

At the last moment, Remus turned back, his hand extended as if in apology. Regulus' eyes blazed warning, and Remus Apparated to London without another word.

* * *

Remus began to invent excuses to visit Regulus' room. It was easy to pretend that he wanted to escape his dull day-job, because correcting copy was hardly a riveting task at the best of times. When he found himself idly rifling through a filing cabinet by Regulus' bed in search of a lucky pebble he'd carried around for years when he was a kid, he was forced to evaluate exactly what his motives were.

He would have succeeded, too, if Regulus hadn't emerged from the bathroom in a billow of steam at that very moment.

He was rubbing a towel through his hair, with another slung at his waist, and Remus had to admit that the way his heart skipped a beat probably wasn't due to any exciting pieces of geology.

Regulus acknowledged him with a nod and dropped the towel from his hair to the floor, confident in the knowledge that Remus would pick it up later. Even as Remus grit his teeth at such cavalier dismissal, his groin began to fizzle.

"There's something I've been meaning to ask you," said Regulus.

"Oh yes?" Remus concentrated hard not to let a wobble show in his voice. He leaned against his desk for support. Regulus had chosen the doorframe as his prop, his shaggy head tilted sideways and sending rivulets of water sailing down the chipped wood.

"Do you think about my brother when you fuck my cousin?" Regulus slipped two fingers under the edge of the towel and hitched it up.

It was several moments before Remus found his voice, which had been hiding behind his burgeoning libido. There was a little smile curving Regulus' mouth. Something flashed red behind Remus' eyes, but he approached -- prowled -- forward slowly, so as not to alarm the prey.

"Well," said Remus quietly, once he was close enough to rest his arm against the wall beside the door and lean in to breath in Regulus' scent, "sometimes. But she doesn't let me take her from behind very often. And, of course, there's all the times I'm thinking about you."

A flicker shivered underneath Regulus' skin, while his face stiffened.

"What, shocked?" breathed Remus. "Don't be such a hypocrite."

Regulus stretched up on to his toes and kissed Remus hard on the mouth, knocking him back into the edge of the door with the strength of it. When he drew back, he was panting. "I kissed you because I wanted to," he hissed. "You want to every time you see me and yet you don't. So how am I a hypocrite again?"

Remus curled his fingers into the soft flesh beneath Regulus' jaw and pulled him up again. He could feel Regulus' body, hot and wet, through his thin shirt, felt the rub of his cock as it swelled beneath the towel.

"Bite me," said Regulus. He stretched his neck sideways and ran his fingers down the exposed skin, so pale that Remus could have named the blood vessels running underneath it.

"What?" Remus started back in shock.

Regulus insinuated his body into Remus', wriggling a little so that the towel slipped ever closer to meeting its mate on the floor. "You heard me. Don't you realise? I lost everything with that Horcrux."

"I had guessed that you lost your magic," said Remus. "But a werewolf bite isn't going to restore that, you idiot!"

Regulus' eyes narrowed. "I said I lost everything," he said. "That's because you left." He stepped backwards, leaving the towel to its fate. "You're going to outlive Nymphadora by several decades -- unless you bite her. And you can't have children. The only way werewolves reproduce --" his voice dropped, although his eyes didn't "-- is to bite."

"How do you know this?" whispered Remus.

"Let's just say Greyback and I had some long chats with a nice cup of tea and a sit-down," said Regulus. "I couldn't exactly say I was trying to seduce a werewolf who hated me -- I had to pretend I was interested in werewolves for their own sweet sakes."

"I'm surprised _he_ didn't bite you," snorted Remus.

"I'm sure he would have, had the Dark Lord permitted it," said Regulus. "Sadly I was too busy being his catamite at the time."

Remus felt all the blood drain from his face. "What --"

"Oh, don't worry." Regulus simpered a mocking smile. "I pretended it was you."

"Remus! Where are you?" came a distant call.

"Nymphadora," said Remus numbly. He felt his way to the door. He looked back once. Regulus was outlined in a burst of late afternoon sunshine. The nimbus danced in front of Remus' eyes long after he should have blinked it away.

* * *

Several months later, there were some unsubstantiated sightings of wolves in the west of Ireland. Excited locals reported how they had seen the sleek grey shapes cavorting on moonlit moors. When questioned more closely about how exactly they had come about this information the sources quickly dried up, and after a while the tale was dismissed as no more than an urban myth.

When Nymphadora Creevey returned home from the hospital with her baby son -- strangely large for a baby six months premature -- she found a lambskin blanket on her doorstep. There was a scrawled card with it reading only "Compliments of the shepherd."

And they all lived happily ever after.


End file.
